by 1864-1898 Indian War Veterans: Memories of Army Life;Campaigns in the West
By the way, since I am not disdaining episodes or names, let me say that our Company A, Thirteenth Infantry, was already identified as the outstanding company of the Thirteenth Infantry for drill and target practice results. Because it had four sharpshooters and a number of marksmen, Private Henry Frankenstein, our company tailor, naively thought Company A proficient enough in shooting Apaches to be ranked No. 1 when it got into action, and entitled to increased pay! Certainly, thirteen dollars a month was meager pay. And the daily ration was only ¾ lb. bacon, 1 ¼ lbs. flour, beans, yeast powder, and coffee. So far, in the summer of 1886, Company A and the troop of Indian scouts had galloped here and there on trips to investigate flying reports without any known authority for their truth, and the boys had found one Saturday afternoon a ranch burned, debris still smoking. On another occasion they discovered a ranchman who had fooled the Apaches that morning by crawling on his belly, he said, ten miles across a level prairie. But query: How did he escape the danger of their observation? On another of these winged expeditions we found a well and the old oaken bucket ruined and a dead cat lying nearby. The ranch was burned to the ground. Some gang of Apaches was traveling around the country exempt from punishment, and traveling within fifteen to twenty miles of our camp at Hachita. Geronimo was hardly with this gang, because Captain Henry W. Lawton and First Lieutenant John N. Glass were hot on his trail a little west.
There were intervening days when we played. Came July 4th and Company A met a cowboy baseball nine for two barrels of beer from Milwaukee. The cowboys’ subsequent defeat was due, Captain Guthrie declared, to our excellent catcher, Private William H. Hyatt, who wore a regulation baseball mask. Where did Hyatt get the mask in that Godforsaken territory? Captain Guthrie umpired the game. On another occasion he ruled on the several horse races conducted by our Indian scouts—stoical, taciturn, and wary Indians. It was characteristic, be it known, for New Mexico to experience moonlight every night, or starlight. The frequent moonlight, the old boys of Company A will recall,…made Harry Green wonder if it were dangerous, and in what way. He had to sleep out in the moonlight a good deal. Would it impair his vision if he did not look at this satellite of the earth? As the months passed and those bi-monthly paydays went by without recognition from the paymaster, the boys reconciled themselves to the prospect of a long winter ahead lying on the ground with poncho and blanket for an improvised mattress and a greatcoat for a pillow. Payday would come only when and if that anti-social Geronimo bit the dust or was captured. On his account we had already missed three paydays, three $25.75’s, but it constituted assets in Uncle Sam’s hands that were good as gold. I had unfortunately, however, been seized with occasional vertigo and had my back sprained permanently from lifting bales of hay intended for our quartermaster mules and Indian scout horses. Ever since that summer, 1886, I have had both afflictions. “Go on the sick report,” warned Sergeant Walton. But I declined. I was 20.
Finally, it was certain that New Mexico and Arizona people had Indian terrors while Geronimo was loose and a wholesome fear of all Apaches in their hearts. The entire population there lived in dread of Indian massacre. The Apaches had been out intermittently for fifty years. People today [1938] know nothing about it. Yet their fathers of those days of 1886 needed shelter from Indians almost as universally as shelter from weather in the Southwest. Geronimo’s war whoops cost the War Department extraordinary expense and many soldiers’ lives to protect the border settlements out there. But Company A, Thirteenth Infantry, notes with satisfaction that it was among “those present” when the Apaches were subdued forever in September, 1886. It put a quietus on our previous expectation of spending the winter in the field, though we former recruits deemed it fine and dandy to land at Fort Bayard from David’s Island on September 10, 1885, and return to Fort Bayard from the field as Indian war veterans on September 10, 1886.
To and from Mexico, 1886 (By Albert Willis, formerly of Troop E, Fourth U. S. Cavalry. From Winners of the West, June, 1924)
On the 18th of August, 1886, the “general call” was suddenly sounded at old Fort Huachuca, Arizona Territory, and just a little after noon Troops D and E of the Fourth U. S. Cavalry received orders to saddle at once for field service and be ready at company front on the parade ground at 2 p.m. to leave for Old Mexico. They rode through the entire night, stopping only once to water their horses and fill their canteens. Up and down the mountain trails they went, sometimes leading their horses, then again riding rapidly to make time, as they were notified by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Forsyth (“Fighting Sandy”) that their objective point was Fronteras, Mexico, which was just 101 miles from Huachuca. Morning came and we were still riding and we could see, over the old Mexican trails, through the valley, the town of Fronteras in the distance, which we reached at 4 p.m.
We halted at Cachula Ranch, five miles beyond, where we met First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood of the Sixth Cavalry, who had been the Indian agent in charge of the reservation from which the Indians we were trailing had escaped. From the information he gave us, and as soon as darkness had set in, we were ordered to form a skirmish line of five-yard intervals, keep a sharp lookout for Indians, and proceed slowly. At daybreak we learned that Captain Henry W. Lawton and his command of cavalry and infantry were just across a river from us, that a powwow had been held with the Indians and they had agreed to produce the head chief, Naiche, son of old Cochise, and also old Geronimo.
We then proceeded to Skeleton Canyon, where Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles joined us, and the surrender of the Indians was accomplished [on September 4, 1886]. We started next day for Bowie Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad and in three days the Indians were entrained and on the way to Fort Barrancas [sic—Fort Marion, Florida], Captain Lawton taking command of them. However, Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood was the man who really got the Indians as he was the only officer they would talk to or surrender to. Captain Lawton got the credit, as “Fighting Sandy” Forsyth, the Beecher Island hero, also at Winchester with General Phil Sheridan, wanted no honors except to claim that his “boys” had made the longest ride in history on this occasion, 101 miles in 26 hours. After reaching their station in 1886, E Troop lost seventeen men who were discharged because they had broken down in health after that terrible ride….
Present at the Surrender, 1886 (By Arnold Schoeni, formerly of Troop G, Fourth U. S. Cavalry. From Winners of the West, August 30, 1930)
After the surrender of Geronimo to Brigadier General George Crook in March, 1883, he got away again and the campaign for three years thereafter was more serious than ever. General Crook was relieved of the command on April 1, 1886, and was succeeded by General Nelson A. Miles. He selected Captain Henry W. Lawton, furnished him with the best riflemen and scouts, to follow the Apaches into Mexico as far as the Laqui River, some 200 miles from the border. In connection with Captain Crawford’s Indian scouts, Captain Thomas C. Lebo’s and First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood’s help, they pressed the Indians to such an extent that Geronimo sent in word he would surrender to the chief.
General Miles, himself, arrived in Skeleton Canyon, and Chiefs Geronimo, Naiche, Chatto, and sub-chiefs were taken to Fort Bowie, Arizona Territory, in charge of General Miles, with a small detail, mostly selected from Troop G, Fourth U. S. Cavalry, of which detail I was a member. It is worth noting that General Miles, although he had an ambulance at his service, rode his horse the entire distance, some sixty-five miles, and on the route sat down with us to share a cup of coffee. The balance of the Indians arrived at Fort Bowie two days later. A great deal of this result was due to the heliograph service, which enabled the operators to flash news of the Indians’ whereabouts to the nearest commands. I was in charge of the station at Steens Pass, New Mexico, previous to joining my troop in the field.
Will state that my captain, William A. Thompson of Troop G, Fourth U. S. Cavalry, was appointed acting adjutant general in the field, and First Lieutenant Wilbur E. Wilder commanded the troop. After the campaign came to
an end, Captain Thompson commissioned me to make copies of all telegraphic and heliographic communications, to the end that a complete history could be assembled of the campaign while in charge of General Nelson A. Miles….
Chasing the Apache Kid, 1892-1894 (By Richard F. Watson, formerly of Troop G, First U. S. Cavalry. From Winners of the West, July, 1939)
Of all the outlawed, renegade Indians that our government had to deal with, the Apache Kid was the worst by far. He was the most bloodthirsty, cruelest, most murderous outlaw in our history. He would kill the ranchers, steal their cattle and horses and, with his gang, make for the most isolated spots of the Table and Superstition mountains. From these hills, he would go on down into old Mexico, across the border, and there he would dispose of the cattle and horses.
On one of these trips over the high mountains and blistering desert, we trailed him to the Mexican border and, knowing he was over the line and in Mexico, we dropped the pursuit of him for a while. We were over our time and out of rations, so we returned to San Carlos. And a sight we were to behold—bewhiskered, dirty, tired, and hungry, our horses worn down to skin and bones, and our stomachs hollow.
In a few weeks we received word that the Apache Kid was back in Arizona and had made another big killing. We hit the trail again and kept after him. I am one of the few men who sighted him, twice through the field glasses of our commander, and that was away across a deep mountain gorge. He was on top of another range. In those terribly isolated mountains, the Kid always kept to the high trails, and it would often take a day’s riding to get around to the point where he had been sighted. And so, with all the hardships and dangers that we experienced in trailing him, we never got him.
For years he continued on his bloodthirsty raids. The mention of his name in Arizona carried a shudder with it. He was the last and worst of that hostile band of Apaches. The partner of Wallapai Clark, an old government scout and miner, was killed and his horses stolen by the Kid. The Kid returned a year or so later, intending to make another raid on the cabin of Clark and he found Mr. Clark at home this time. Clark killed the Kid’s squaw and wounded the Kid. It is believed that the Kid crawled into a cave somewhere in the mountains and died, as he was never heard of after that time.
Suggested Reading
For those readers interested in learning more about army life on the frontier, 1860s-1890s, and about the Indian campaigns treated in this book, or in seeking more context for the veterans’ reminiscences presented herein, the following titles are among the best available.
Brimlow, George F. The Bannock War of 1878. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1938.
Brown, Dee. Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga. New York; G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962.
Buecker, Thomas R. Fort Robinson and the American West, 1874-1899. Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, 1999.
Coffman, Edward M. The Old Army: A Portrait of the American Army in Peacetime, 1774-1998. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Cozzens, Peter (ed.) Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865-1890. Vol. One, The Struggle for Apacheria; Vol. Two, The Wars for the Pacific Northwest; Vol. Three, Conquering the Southern Plains; Vol. Four, The Northern Plains; Vol. Five, Army Life and Leaders. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: The Stackpole Company, 2001-2004.
Faulk, Odie B. The Geronimo Campaign. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Graham, William A. The Custer Myth: A Sourcebook of Custeriana. Harrisburg, Penn.: The Stackpole Company, 1953.
Gray, John S. Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876. Fort Collins, Colo.: Old Army Press, 1976.
Greene, Jerome A. Morning Star Dawn: The Powder River Expedition and the Northern Cheyennes, 1876. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
——. Nez Perce Summer, 1877: The U.S. Army and the Nee-Me-Poo Crisis. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2000.
——. Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
——. Yellowstone Command: Colonel Nelson A. Miles and the Great Sioux War, 1876-1877. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.
Hedren, Paul L. Traveler’s Guide to the Great Sioux War: The Battlefields, Forts, and Related Sites of American’s Greatest Indian War. Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1996.
——. We Trailed the Sioux: Enlisted Men Speak on Custer, Crook, and the Great Sioux War. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2003.
Hoig, Stan. Perilous Pursuit: The U.S. Cavalry and the Northern Cheyennes. Niwot, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 2002.
Hutton, Paul A. Phil Sheridan and His Army. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
Leckie, William H. The Military Conquest of the Southern Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Mangum, Neil C. Battle of the Rosebud: Prelude to the Little Bighorn. El Segundo, Calif.: Upton and Sons, 1987.
McDermott, John D. Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865. Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2003.
Murray, Keith A. The Modocs and Their War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.
Rickey, Don, Jr. Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay: The Enlisted Soldier Fighting the Indian Wars. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Robinson, Charles M., III. A Good Year to Die: The Story of the Great Sioux War. New York: Random House, Incorporated, 1995.
Sklenar, Larry. To Hell with Honor: Custer and the Little Big Horn. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Stewart, Edgar I. Custer’s Luck. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955.
Thompson, Erwin N. Modoc War: Its Military History and Topography. Sacramento, Calif.: Argus Books, 1971.
Thrapp, Dan L. The Conquest of Apacheria. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.
Utley, Robert M. Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1890. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1973.
——. Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1866. New York: The Macmillian Company, 1967.
——. The Last Days of the Sioux Nation. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963.
Vaughn, Jesse W. The Reynolds Campaign on Powder River. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
INDEX
Abbe, John
Abell, Lt. Henry H.
Abilene, Texas
Adams, Capt. Emil
Ahrens, William
Albrecht, Ernest F.
Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory
Alcott, Sgt. Samuel
Aldrich, Sgt. Lauren W.
Aleshire, Lt. James B.
Aller, Charles
American Fur Co.
American Horse, Sioux chief
American Legion Monthly, Aug., 1928
American Military Institute
Amoretti, Eugene
Anderson, Thomas
Andrews, James
Andrews, Sgt. (-)
Andrus, Capt. James
Apache Indians, campaigns against
Apache Kid
Apache Pass, Arizona Territory
Applegate, Capt. Oliver C.
photo
Arapaho Indians
Arkansas Military Units, Fourth Cav.
Arkansas City, Kansas
Arkansas River
Armes, Maj. George A.
Armstrong, John
Army and Navy Club
Army War College
Arthur, President Chester A.
Askins, Sgt. Simon, photo
Assiniboin Indians
Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad
Aughey, Will
Augur, Capt. Colon
Aztec Club
Baader, Leo
Babcock, Conrad
Babcock, Capt. John B.
Bacon, Gen. John R.
Baege, Pvt. Ludwig
Baily, Banks, and Biddle
Baird, Capt. William
Baker, Maj. Eugene
Baldwin, Lt. Frank D.
Baliran,
August
Ball, Pvt. John H.
Baltimore, Maryland
Bangerter, Mrs. Frederick S. (Virginia E. Wing)
Bankhead, Lt. Col. Henry C.
Bannock Indian War of 1878
Bannock Indians
Barker, Capt. Edgar A.
Barker, Luther
Barnes, Pvt. Francis G., photo
Bartel, Pvt. (-), photo
Bates Fight, Wyoming Territory
Bates, Capt. Alfred E.
Batson, Sgt. George W.
Batty, William H.
Bean, Jack
Bean, Roy
Bear’s Paw Mountains, Montana, Battle of
Beatrice, Nebraska
Beaver Creek, Kansas, engagement at
Becker, Henry B.
Beecher Island, Colorado Territory, Battle of
Belden, Pvt. James H.
Belle Fourche River
Bemidji, Minnesota
Bennet, Pvt. John
Bennett, Capt. Andrew S.
Benteen, Capt. Frederick W.